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Will We Scorch the Sky to Avoid Confronting Capitalism?
Anyone who’s read a history book knows that the world has always been a chaotic, mad place, but the level of sheer absurdity we are currently being forced to endure has to be unmatched. As the ravages of climate change become too obvious to dismiss, finding solutions quickly has become paramount. The survival of much life on the planet hangs in the balance. It is an existential crisis, the unfurling of an environmental Armageddon, a literal “fate of humanity” moment. It’s a problem the best and brightest of the world’s minds should be working on around the clock. Perhaps we should get other people on the job… Scientists at Harvard and Yale have suggested spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to dim the intensity of the sun.
Trying to prevent global warming by dispersing chemicals into the sky is literally a plot point in the French graphic novel, Le Transperceneige. I’ve never read it, but I’ve watched Snowpiercer, the Chris Evans-led, English-language film, which is based on the book. Following the catastrophically failed experiment to alter the atmosphere, a new Ice Age begins, and all of humanity is obliterated except for those who made it on board a train, the titular Snowpiecer, which runs on a perpetual motion engine, never stopping, plowing through snow and ice on a track that circumnavigates the globe. The train is divided by class, and the…
